Thursday, June 10, 2010

President Obama Meets With Business Leaders on Energy

President Obama met with business leaders and energy experts today to discuss energy reform. The guests included:

- Bill Gates of Microsoft
- Jeff Immelt of GE
- Ursula Burns of Xerox
- John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins
- Charles Holliday of Bank of America (chairman of the board) and DuPont
- Tim Solso of Cummins
- Jason Grumet of the Bipartisan Policy Center
- Hal Harvey of the ClimateWorks Foundation
The business leaders formed the American Energy Innovation Council (AEIC) to urge the United States to triple the research funding into clean energy like biofuels and car batteries to $16 billion per year, from $5 billion now. A report released AEIC today called for the increase in spending and the creation of an independent National Energy Strategy Board to coordinate federal energy research. The report also has three other recommendations:

1) Creating centers of excellence in energy innovation;

2) Increasing funding for the Energy Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, which encourages "out-of-the-box" transformational energy research; and

3) Establishing a program for large-scale demonstration projects.
The business group was not endorsing any specific energy legislation, but wants the government to put a price on emitting greenhouse gases. (WSJ, 6/10/2010, Reuters, 6/10/2010)

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